Many modern manufactured systems and other structural products such as aircraft have extensive maintenance requirements and data records. Current maintenance data systems allow technicians to retrieve technical manuals and other maintenance information for a system type being worked on in portable computer or handheld computing devices for ease of access to necessary information. Many systems additionally include recorded maintenance information specific to the exact system being examined. This allows technicians immediate access to necessary information without having to leave the work area to view manuals, data records or computer terminals with the desired information.
Aircraft manufacturer aircraft-on-ground (AOG) teams frequently fly all over the world to perform on-site repairs to return customer aircraft back to service. A typical repair to a customer aircraft may involve the removal of hundreds of parts especially in areas of the aircraft where part density is high. At least in the United States, each part removed from the aircraft must be documented and labeled per Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. Identifying information for each part (part number, part name, aircraft location, etc.) can be difficult and time consuming. This excessive time spent researching part information can increase overall repair times and lead to additional repair costs.
Quality issues are frequently identified during the aircraft production build cycle. The first step in resolving the issue is to accurately document the issue, which often includes identifying facts such the parts involved, the location in the aircraft coordinate system and installation authority. Just finding part numbers and relaying that information to others is a difficult and time consuming task. For example, once a part is installed, the identification tag on the part is frequently hidden from sight so that the only way to find the part number is to start exploring the engineering documentation. This could require spending hours to find and validate the part number that was installed due to the large amount of engineering definition required for a large commercial aircraft. A significant number of the documented issues have incorrect or missing information or are duplications because of the difficulties in accurately collecting the required information. When this happens, the issue reports must be routed back to the initiators for correction. This overall process is time consuming and can result in significant delays during the build cycle when any disruption could result in delayed deliveries.